hey guys
is there a way to change the algorithm for swing in the op1?
cheers, peter
No, but you can work around it using the sketch sequencer or maybe endless and some tape speed adjustment.
thx for the reply. would have been nice to see a selection of different swing styles.
cheers, peter.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by swing styles? I understand it is something different than change the swing percentage, but not sure what else you would change.
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imo the swing algorithm in the OP1 is not musical at all. which is really sad because having a good swing algorithm is so important. i was really looking forward to trying out the creative swing that TE had implemented :(.
in the OP1 the swing algorithm never moves beat 1 or 3, it only moves beat 2 and 4. less than 50% moves beat 2 closer beat 1 and beat 4 closer to beat 3. more than 50% moves beat 2 further from beat 1 and beat 4 further from beat 3. the distance between 1-2 and 3-4 is linear.
essentially we end up with a linear swing movement. beat 2 moves exactly the same distance from beat 1 as beat 4 does from beat 2 (in reverse). — but that doesn’t sound musical at all — it’s pretty basic algorithm and i would have thought TE would be more creative than that.
what they could have done, and this would have been really cool, is make the distance between 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 non-linear i.e., make the distance moved for beats 3 and 4 1.1x that of the distance between 1 and 2. and instead of having a % the knob could be endless, endlessly cycling through the different variations. or they could have two controllers for swing, one for relativity of 1-2 and 3-4 and a second control for the relativity of 2-4.
i mean there are so many cool ways to implement a swing algorithm — i just came up with that idea off the top of my head.
the swing in the MPC60 is an essential feature. that swing capability defines why it’s a great machine for hiphop. so many people use the OP1 for hiphop it would be great to implement something similar.
another option would be to implement “grooves” like ableton. ableton even include MPC swing in the list of grooves for a very good reason— they sound dope. maybe the op1 could have a grooves pool too.
i know what you are going to say ;) “this is the way it is. get used to it. it is not ableton”. but not being able to manipulate the swing is pretty bad — feels like it was overlooked.
cheers, peter.
Roger Linn on MPC60 swing
"Swing – applied to quantized 16th-note beats – is a big part of it. My implementation of swing has always been very simple: I merely delay the second 16th note within each 8th note. In other words, I delay all the even-numbered 16th notes within the beat (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) In my products I describe the swing amount in terms of the ratio of time duration between the first and second 16th notes within each 8th note. For example, 50% is no swing, meaning that both 16th notes within each 8th note are given equal timing. And 66% means perfect triplet swing, meaning that the first 16th note of each pair gets 2/3 of the time, and the second 16th note gets 1/3, so the second 16th note falls on a perfect 8th note triplet. "
This is exactly what the OP-1 does. So sounds like they nailed it.
yeah they got the guts of it right 
but theres more to the magic roger doesnt say in that interview. he didnt mention “shift” which is part of swing and moves all notes off the beat, not just the even beats, and he left out that it can be applied to a single hit or hits. when all the notes are moved it doesnt sound like an mpc to me. i guess if you were just doing kick and hats it would be fine. maybe ill just have to record the kick + hats on a separate track.
i appreciate it is basic, but i would have liked to be able to manipulate the swing a bit more with some additional parameters, shifting notes in a non linear fashion etc, or having a variety of mpc swing styles. having said that – it is not a valid rant to say it “should” do these things. i kind of just expected some creativity in the algorithms. it doesnt do it, thats fine.
peace, peter.
yeah they got the guts of it right ;) but theres more to the magic roger doesnt say in that interview. he didnt mention "shift" which is part of swing and moves all notes off the beat, not just the even beats, and he left out that it can be applied to a single hit or hits. when all the notes are moved it doesnt sound like an mpc to me. i guess if you were just doing kick and hats it would be fine. maybe ill just have to record the kick + hats on a separate track.i appreciate it is basic, but i would have liked to be able to manipulate the swing a bit more with some additional parameters, shifting notes in a non linear fashion etc, or having a variety of mpc swing styles. having said that -- it is not a valid rant to say it "should" do these things. i kind of just expected some creativity in the algorithms. it doesnt do it, thats fine.peace, peter.
Once again, use the tape machine and multiple tracks and you can have whatever kind of swing you want. You have to get creative with the tape and bouncing tracks! Put beat 1 and 3 on a track and 2 and 4 on a track with different swing settings…
Good idea, never thought about that in the few month I have mine. Cool workaround. this thread is full of new things to try.
yeah they got the guts of it right ;) but theres more to the magic roger doesnt say in that interview. he didnt mention "shift" which is part of swing and moves all notes off the beat, not just the even beats, and he left out that it can be applied to a single hit or hits. when all the notes are moved it doesnt sound like an mpc to me. i guess if you were just doing kick and hats it would be fine. maybe ill just have to record the kick + hats on a separate track.i appreciate it is basic, but i would have liked to be able to manipulate the swing a bit more with some additional parameters, shifting notes in a non linear fashion etc, or having a variety of mpc swing styles. having said that -- it is not a valid rant to say it "should" do these things. i kind of just expected some creativity in the algorithms. it doesnt do it, thats fine.peace, peter.Once again, use the tape machine and multiple tracks and you can have whatever kind of swing you want. You have to get creative with the tape and bouncing tracks! Put beat 1 and 3 on a track and 2 and 4 on a track with different swing settings…
ptsowns that is an awesome idea – thankyou. i thought you meant “vary the tape speed during recording” haha. ill give your idea a go. thx again.
@PTSowns great idea with that. I’ve had some interesting results by recording drum parts to different tracks and then using the tape nudge to poke them around. Really loosens up a rigid pattern
Regarding the 60 it’s essentially a ‘slow’ computer which may add some mojo to the sloppy swing. Nothing quite has its vibe/feel.
My fraustration with the op-1 is the lack of options for humanising the feel of drum programming
Wouldn’t more humanizing just become finger drumming the pattern? Or do you want it to be humanize but exactly the same over a one bar loop? I agree that a “slop” setting would be cool. But “swing” or “shuffle” seems to always mean exactly what TE and Linn did for a hard coded method for generating a swinging feel. In jazz band, swing meant swing, and missing timing on quarter notes was slop.
yeah i agree that “slop” would be cool. cool name too. i think the advantage of having such a feature is the randomisation of what you are going to get. turn the knob until something sounds good to you, a “beat feel” you wouldn’t have come up with on your own for example.
would be good to put a lfo on “slop” too so you could record to tape with some humanisation on the drums.